Guidance Navigation Control Engineer

Job Title - Guidance Navigation Control Engineer

Job Location - 1575 S. Price Road, Chandler, Arizona, United States of America, 85286

Job Description -

Northrop Grumman’s Space Sector invites you to bring your pioneering spirit and technical leadership to our collaborative teams. As a Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer in Chandler, AZ, you will take a lead role in missions of national importance, with a strong emphasis on seeker modeling, target tracking, and advanced GNC algorithms for missile and launch vehicle systems. This position is 100% onsite and cannot accommodate telecommute work and will work a 9/80 schedule, with every other Friday off.

In this role, you will lead the development and evaluation of guidance, navigation, and control systems for advanced aerospace applications, focusing on seeker based missile engagements and precision intercept performance. You will own key algorithm design and analysis tasks, applying mathematical models, control theory, and state estimation techniques to process complex seeker measurements and drive guidance and control laws. Your work will include architecting and maintaining six degree of freedom (6 DOF) simulations, defining performance metrics, integrating hardware and software components, and conducting rigorous performance assessments and trade studies. You will mentor early career engineers, provide technical direction on seeker and tracking approaches, and collaborate with cross functional teams to ensure system reliability and mission success.

Responsibilities include leading the design, development, implementation, verification, and test of high quality flight and simulation software; owning the design and maintenance of 6 DOF simulations used to develop, analyze, and validate flight algorithms and code; optimizing flight and simulation software for performance, robustness, and maintainability; defining and executing analysis campaigns using trajectory optimization and evaluation tools; and presenting technical results, risks, and recommendations to program leadership. This position is contingent upon obtaining and maintaining required program access(es), within a reasonable period of time, as determined by the company.

Basic Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree with 8 years of professional experience, or a Master’s degree with 6 years of professional experience, or a PhD with 4 years of professional experience, in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related engineering discipline. Must have an existing U.S. Government security clearance at the Secret level. Demonstrated experience with guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) concepts, algorithms, or analysis for aerospace or missile systems. Experience leading or significantly contributing to development, modeling, simulation, test, integration, or analysis activities for aerospace, missile, spacecraft, or autonomous systems. Proficiency with one or more of the following: MATLAB/Simulink, Python, C/C++, or similar technical software tools, with development in a Linux environment.

Preferred Qualifications: Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related engineering discipline. Strong foundation in control systems theory, guidance law development, and flight software implementation. Experience with state estimation and nonlinear filtering (e.g., Kalman Filter, Extended Kalman Filter, Unscented Kalman Filter), including tuning and performance assessment in realistic scenarios. Deep domain knowledge in target tracking and seeker systems (infrared and/or radio frequency), including requirements definition and algorithm design. Experience developing and validating target dynamics and measurement models and integrating them into end to end 6 DOF simulations. Experience with seeker measurements such as angle only measurements, line of sight (LOS) rate estimation, pixel/centroid based measurements for infrared seekers, and/or range, range rate (Doppler), azimuth/elevation, and angle only tracking for RF seekers. Experience with data association methods, track initiation and maintenance logic, and multi target tracking in the presence of false alarms and clutter. Proven ability to lead small technical teams or work packages, mentor junior engineers, and communicate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders. Strong proficiency in C/C++ and Python and experience with software development tools such as Jira, version control, and continuous integration workflows in a Linux environment.